Ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. This web site is my attempt to document, from my perspective, these "interesting times".

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Talking Points Tuesday: The Four Narratives

Here's a
recommended diary over at the dailyKOS by one jedc. It is an account of a
speech given by Robert Reich at the London School of Economics. The speech had
two parts, the first being a discussion of what we can see in Bush's second term
while the second was a discussion of partisan politics. It is this later part
which I'd like to quote:

What came next was quite an interesting idea. Reich described four
narratives that every successful campaign must have. They are:

HOPEFUL narratives

Rags-to-riches

People coming together (think Frank Capra)

FEARFUL narratives

Mob at the gates

Rot at the top

Essentially, Bush had narratives for each of these four boxes. From the
top: the "ownership society", faith-based issues, terrorism, and liberal
elites.

Reich discussed how the "Rot at the top" narrative has changed in the
last 30-40 years. It used to be the rot at the top of businesses. Then it
became the rot within government and Washington. But now that the
Republicans have control over the entire government they have managed to
shift this narrative to rot of elites, specifically the "godlessness" of the
liberal elites.

So what the hell does Robert Reich think Democrats should do? DEMOCRATS
MUST TELL THEIR OWN TRUE AND COMPELLING STORIES. True and compelling
narratives CAN get through the filters, even right-wing media filters. And
once a narrative is laid out for the American people, the policy ideas the
candidate has can be truly understood.

The Four Narratives is a good model for developing talking points and it is a
good suggestion that they be told through individual stories. Our challenge in
the coming months will be for liberals to develop these narratives, find the
stories that express them and then spread them far and wide.

Here are some suggestions just off the top of my head:

HOPEFUL narratives

Rags-to-riches - Stories about people overcoming their troubles
through the help of liberal programs.